“The old people say, `Learn from your mistakes’. So I try to accept everything for what it is and to make the best of each situation one day at a time.” –Dr. A.C. Ross (Ehanamani), LAKOTA
The Creator did not design us to beat ourselves up when we make mistakes. Mistakes are our friends. It is from mistakes that we learn. The more mistakes we learn from, the faster we gain wisdom. The faster we gain wisdom, the more we love. The more we love, the fewer our mistakes. Therefore, mistakes help us to learn love. God is love. Mistakes are sacred and help us learn about God’s will for ourselves.
Great Spirit, help me, today, to learn from my mistakes.
i could have saved myself a lot of pain if i’d been familiar with this concept a couple of years ago. note that i am not kicking myself for not knowing… so progress! (chuckle)
i find it interesting that much of these sayings and the native american philosophy overall seem in high parallel if not outright complementary to Buddhism. one of many systems that share the aspects of what seems more and more often to be manifest truth.
it took me six months and a freaking universe of conflicted emotions and zig-zagging through them to reach a point where they could be embrace as they are… anger and sadness as one, admiration and disdain as equally valid, and love as it is, in the face of it all, pure and pristine and untouched.
it’s odd, really. it was only february that the truth of suchness really landed, and the process of absorbing it was clumsy but is now well underway. to be ok with moments of angst or tender memory, each as they are, and to reconcile the hurt of the false accusations with the acceptance of the true ones that were never made by another, but sit no less firmly here.
so many lessons. my mind is gurgling but this too, is well. keeps the damn thing occupied and frees me up to just be. heh.
i have the sense this is the tip of a rather impressive iceberg. so i’m floating a time. perhaps for a long time. we shall see.
it is a strange feeling to forgive, but not forget. not as in begrudging, but as in honoring. hard to explain. thankful for mistakes rather than angry for them.
of late, the ache returns. but it is not the same. in this moment, it is more like a memory of summer passed. yes, it was a pleasant moment. decidedly heated in places, but not without delight. no things may be undone, and all things done were needed. so no reaching to change any of them. just to nod and say softly, ‘it was a memorable summer. i will remember.’